Making consistent blogging mistakes can prove to be a blunder if you are looking forward to making a solid online presence.
Before we dive into the common blogging mistakes, let us first understand the evolution of the blog and its emerging importance.
Since its first appearance in the late 1990s, blogging has come a long way.
Originally, blogging was used as a unique platform to express the thoughts, emotions, opinions, or observations of a person – an online journal or diary with a short follow-up.
It has now developed into a forum used by millions, all from individuals to companies.
Business organizations are using blogs to achieve far more things than just providing valuable information to visitors.
It takes a lot of effort to try and make a blog successful.
Many blogging mistakes can though slow the process of creating a successful blog.
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The ability of a blog to boost the SEO of your website is one of the most recently recognized advantages of blogging for a business organization.
Google’s algorithm has been developed to focus heavily on the quality and rate of posts/updates of a website.
Therefore, if a blog is well-managed, meaning that it is regularly updated and focused on important business issues, it will improve the SEO of your website.
Blogging done right can work wonders for a business organization but creating a successful blog takes time.
Making blogging mistakes is inevitable, as it is a creative field that cannot be perfected.
There’s nothing wrong with making blogging mistakes, but if you can prevent a few blogging errors, you can easily build a better blog.
10 Blogging Mistakes to Avoid in 2020 :
1. Using Intricate Text
The first and most common mistake made is using complex and intricate language in your blogs.
By using complex and fancy words you may be able to showcase your command over the language but to make a successful blog you need to connect with your audience.
While complex words can make you sound knowledgeable, they can make your material sound stupid.
Difficult words make readers work hard on their hands, distracting readers from the message you are trying to convey.
In order to connect with your visitors/audience, you must use easy-to-understand words and phrases so as to reach the maximum audience.
The more relatable and easy to read your article is the better are the chances of your blog to decrease the bounce rate.
This mistake can be avoided by using the following tips:
- Write as if you are talking to your readers
- Write short and precise sentences
- Avoid writing long and monotonous paragraphs
- Avoid using intricate text
- Share your own experiences
2. Improper Audience Analysis
Audience research/analysis is one of the fields in which business owners prefer to miss or do minimal research altogether.
This is a huge mistake that not only can decrease the value of your company but can also affect your earnings.
To successfully facilitate solutions, you need to learn your audience’s tastes and preferences.
The only way to learn is to do the research and get proof of what you suspect to be true.
Not knowing what your audience needs will always be a waste of your time.
Without knowing what your audience needs you won’t be able to write content that can help you to increase traffic on your blog as well as your site.
This mistake can be avoided by using the following tips:
- Get the demographics of your audience
- Create an ideal customer profile
- Create content in harmony with customer profile
- Prepare content dealing with your audience’s problems
3. Improper Blog Structure
Another blogging mistake people make is that they don’t follow a proper blog structure.
Just after reading a few phrases, the readers get the idea if the blog has an appropriate structure or not.
This has a huge impact on the bounce rate.
The poor the blog is structured the higher will be the bounce rate.
There are plenty of blog structures and writing methods, but one of the most appropriate is the traditional one:
- Introduction
- Middle Part
- Conclusion
Start with a good introduction to your blog.
It should summarize the topic and begin with the idea that readers can relate and agree with you.
An appropriate introduction should make the readers feel connected and gives a strong impression that the blog is framed and written for them.
Then the middle part of the blog should be guiding the readers to the solution they are looking for.
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Not only should the middle part provide enough valuable information to the reader but also be able to build a positive relationship with the readers.
At last, the conclusion of the blog should be opinion based and also interactive asking the readers to give their views and opinions as well.
A better blog can be appropriately structured by:
- Splitting your blog into three sections: Introduction-Middle-Conclusion
- All sections of the blog should be inter-related.
- Use the ideal font size and style.
- Appropriately use spaces between words and sentences.
4. Writing Bad Headlines
The first thing that your visitor will read is your headline. It is like your business card, your call-to-action. That is to say that it has to be exciting and engaging enough so to make your visitor think that your post worthies their time and click on it.
As you know, you are competing with several other blogs but not only with it. You are competing with phone notifications, apps calling for attention, full inboxes, and all the other noise buzzing around the internet. So you must stand out and spend a good amount of time crafting the best headline that you can.
5. Having a Broad Topic
One of the most common and influential blogging mistakes is selecting a topic that is too broad. Selecting a topic that can be understood by a larger audience can be effective but it is difficult to justify that in a single blog post. A broad topic requires many details which is difficult as a blog post should be connected with a flow. Not only does writing on a broad topic be monotonous for the readers but it will also result in a higher bounce rate as readers will easily detach. Having a specialized niche means you can focus your blog posts a lot more and reach a more dedicated audience. When selecting a sub-niche, providing the information/solutions they want and need is much easier. For everyone, specialization is a win/win situation as long as you do your research first.
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This mistake can be avoided by using the following tips:
- Writing on specific topics
- Audience research
- Curate your content as per the audience
6. Ignoring Your Analytics
Google offers you several free tools that you can add to your blog and get detailed reports about how it is doing online. Google Webmasters Tools and Google Analytics are so good to be true that you might get lost and overwhelmed there.
But it shouldn’t be an excuse just to ignore them. Just go online and find posts, articles, or classes about them both and learn everything you need to know to make the most of them. And start applying their insights to your blog from now on.
7. Ignoring Keyword Research
Keyword research is a very effective analysis when it comes to blogging.
Keywords are the heart of your SEO strategy. It is through them that people will find you online and that Google will understand what you are up to. So if you don’t give enough attention to it or just guess which are the keywords that you must add to your content and blog settings, you are at risk of losing a lot of traffic due to it.
So, make the most of the free tools available, such as KeywordTool.io, or get a paid service if you can afford it and stop being an amateur here. It just takes typing on a search bar your main keyword to get several long-tail suggestions that will improve your results in no time.
To curate the best content you should:
- Do keyword research as per search volume and intent
- Use long-tail keywords
- Do not stuff keywords excessively
8. Adding Too Many Keywords
OK, so you are sure you aren’t guilty of tip number two above. But what about this one? Are you constantly tempted to add all possible keywords to every single post that you have? Then you aren’t doing it right either.
If you keep doing it, Google will consider you are a spammer or desperate person, which in neither case qualify you as a valuable and reliable source. So be careful about the density of your keywords per articles – there many calculations that you can use to get it right, but the simple and easy way to do it is by adding your keywords naturally instead of forcing them on the text.
9. Leaving Broken Links Behind
You wrote a post and added a few links to it, as a good SEO strategy requires. But you never get back to check it and see if the links are still pointing in the right direction. As a consequence, you end up with posts full of broken links that do no good to your ranking.
Your readers also probably hate clicking on things that take them nowhere. So make sure that you click on your links regularly, and you will know if they are still working or not.
10. Adding Too Many Links
you should know that links shouldn’t be too many. How many is too many will depend on the length of your post, but they are getting too distracting, and all that you can see is a sea of links, you know that you have overdone it.
You also should balance internal with external links and take care of your anchor texts. And talking about anchor texts…
As you know, anchor text is the word or sentence on which your visitor clicks so to go to the link you have suggested.
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